NOLA Media Firm Launches New Content Management System: PhireCMS

Do a search for “content management systems” and they’ll be a plethora of options for you to choose. From proprietary systems to open-source softer, content management systems or CMS’s is used to manage the content on websites. It usually consist of a web based system with a GUI (graphic user interface) interface that allows you to add information using a WYSISYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. Users don’t have to knowledge of HTML, FTP or web design principals because CMS’ focus more on content rather than design and coding. A popular example is WordPress, which started off as a blogging platform and is now evolving in a CMS.

Moc 10 Media, LLC, a New Orleans design firm that does web media, traditional media, and web based programming has launched a new CMS: PhireCMS. The company’s owner, Nick Sagona told us why they decided to come out with their own content management system. “Over the few years, I’ve seen my fair share of publishing platforms, namely WordPress, Expression Engine, ModX but a lot of times one would something pretty well and another would do something else pretty well but we always had to jump back and forth to find the right fit. Our goal was to create something that was extremely easy to use and integrate features tighter under a single system” said Mr. Sagona. The company started building the CMS a year ago for use with their own clients and saw the potential that it could have for others.

The company opted to make the system open source because the market for CMS’ is very competitive. Web developers have plenty of open source options to choose from and with established names like Drupal, WordPress, and Plone it’ll be an uphill battle for PhireCMS to get developers to jump on board when creating plug-ins, themes, or other modules. But there are a couple of key features that make the CMS stand out. “Some of the key features of PhireCMS are the multiple site management which allows you to mange various websites on a single install, assigning user permissions to different sites, mobile presentations are built in, and users can access the system from their mobile device to perform small edits” said Mr. Sagona.

We were able to demo the CMS from the company website and found it extremely easy to use. The interface was very simple to navigate and allowed a user to jump in and out of pages, assets, or extensions. A couple themes have already been designed and ten plug-ins have been developed.